Copy-editing: Paul M. Delavos, HOLLITZER Wissenschaftsverlag (Vienna, Austria)
Layout and Cover: Barbara Ebeling (Vienna, Austria)
Printed and bound in the EU
First published in 1999 by Turton & Armstrong Pty Limited Publishers, Wahroonga, Australia.
Revised edition published 2013 by HOLLITZER Wissenschaftsverlag, Vienna, Austria.
Agnes Selby: Constanze, Mozart’s Beloved.
Vienna: HOLLITZER Wissenschaftsverlag, 2013
Cover image:
detail from Constanze Mozart, neé Weber. Oil painting by Hans Hansen (1769–1828), Vienna 1802.
© Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum (ISM), F 000.265.
Letter from W. A. Mozart to his wife Constanze, Vienna, July 3, 1791.
© Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum (ISM), Bibliotheca Mozartiana, DocBD 1176, p. 1.
© HOLLITZER Wissenschaftsverlag, Wien 2013
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PART I: CONSTANZE, WIFE OF MOZART
WEBER/MOZART FAMILY TREE
ANCESTRY AND YOUTH
ON THE MOVE—MUNICH AND VIENNA
COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE
LIFE WITH MOZART
THE SALZBURG JOURNEY
PROSPERITY AND FREEDOM
LEOPOLD MOZART’S VISIT
THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO
DON GIOVANNI AND THE DESCENT TO HELL
THE DEATH OF EMPEROR JOSEPH II AND AN END OF AN ERA
A REQUIEM FOR MOZART
MOZART’S DEATH
PART II: CONSTANZE, WIDOW OF MOZART AND MADAM NISSEN
CONSTANZE—A WOMAN ALONE
KEEPING MOZART’S MUSIC ALIVE
NISSEN
CONSTANZE’S SECOND MARRIAGE
GOODBYE TO VIENNA FOREVER
AN INTERLUDE IN COPENHAGEN
NISSEN’S MOZART BIOGRAPHY
CONSTANZE’S SECOND WIDOWHOOD
A PLEASANT INTERLUDE
PROBLEMS WITH DOCTOR FEUERSTEIN
FULFILMENT OF A DREAM
EPILOGUE
APPENDIX—MOZART’S SONS: THE LEGACY OF A GENIUS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
It was due to my daughter, Kathryn’s interest in music at an early age that a wealth of musical literature was brought to my attention that I may not otherwise have studied. Through her attendance at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, I gained access to the Curtis library and it was there that I first began to doubt what I read about Constanze Mozart. I could not reconcile Mozart’s love for his wife with the derogatory terms used by many Mozartean writers to describe her. Although much respected during her lifetime, Constanze’s reputation suffered greatly during the twentieth century. Some historians have written about Constanze in such vitriolic terms as to test the boundaries of both credibility and scholarship. There seems to be no explanation for this phenomenon. More recent writers, such as H. C. Robbins Landon, Volkmar Braunbehrens and Viggo Sjøqvist, have questioned the reason for this obsessive hatred of Constanze but have found no acceptable answers. During my own reading and research I have found no evidence to support the claims made by writers maligning the woman who spent a large part of her life ensuring that Mozart’s music survived.
Thus, on a cold January afternoon, in the stillness of the Curtis Institute’s library, I realised that Constanze’s story was begging to be told. Her own story, not just as a part of Mozart’s life, but the story of Constanze, Mozart’s beloved wife. I did not realise in my early enthusiasm what precious little information there was about Constanze during her life with Mozart and how long she would manage to elude me. I studied her in fine detail, painstakingly painting a canvas of her personality, until I felt that I understood the many intricate colours of her character. I did not know then that the journey I embarked on would take years to complete, nor that Constanze would prove to be such a pleasant travelling companion.
During this long journey I had help from many friends without whose assistance Constanze’s story could not have been told.
The late Professor Max Rudolf generously allowed me access to his vast Mozart book collection, which is now housed in the library at the University of Pennsylvania.
Dr. P. J. Davies, Mozart scholar and author of Mozart in Person. His Character and Health, spent hours unstintingly copying many long articles in order to help me with the writing of this book. His articles and his well-researched book greatly helped me to understand Mozart’s complex personality.
I would like to thank Dr. Rudolf Angermüller and Ms. Geneviève Geffray of the Salzburg Mozarteum for allowing me the extended use of the Mozarteum library, helping me with my research and giving me valuable advice. My sincerest thanks are due to the editors of Quadrant, Robert Manne for his original encouragement, and P. P. McGuinness and Deputy Editor, G. Thomas for their continuing support in publishing my research.
Many thanks are also due to the various publishing houses for allowing me to use quotations from their publications, as listed in the bibliography. Special thanks are due to Mr. Sigurd Sjøqvist for allowing me to quote from his brother’s book and for his helpful advice.
Thanks are also due to Danish archivist Morten Westrup of Rigsarkivet in Copenhagen, and to the St. Ives, New South Wales, librarians Judi Baget and Martin Leroi. I greatly enjoyed my discussions with Madge Fitzgerald (née Weber), a direct descendant of Fridolin Weber senior, Constanze’s grandfather, who kindly presented me with her drawing of Mozartplatz for inclusion in this book.
My sincerest thanks go to my husband, Theo. He was my travelling and research companion on our journey in search of Constanze Mozart. He was my tower of strength when my spirit began to flag from the sheer enormity of my undertaking.
I would like to thank Dr. Michael Hüttler for the publication of the second revised edition. His advice and help is greatly appreciated. Also many thanks to Sherry Davis for introducing me to Dr. Hüttler and for being a good friend for many years.
Agnes Selby
Austrian currency in Mozart and Constanze’s time:
1 gulden = 1 florin = 60 kreutzer
1 ducat (gold coin) = 4.5 gulden
For Theo, Kathy and Michael
‘But the middle one, my good, dear Constanze, is the martyr of the family and, probably for that reason, is the kindest hearted, the cleverest and in short the best of them all.’
– Mozart to his father, May 9, 1781
‘Whoever gets a wife like Constanze will certainly be a happy man.’
– Mozart to his father, July 27, 1782
‘…Moreover she understands housekeeping and has the kindest heart in the world. I love her and she loves me with all her heart.’
– Mozart to his father, December 15, 1781
‘…My one wish now is that my affairs should be settled, so that I can be with you again. You cannot imagine how I have been aching for you all this long while… Even my work gives me no pleasure, because I am accustomed to stop working now and then and exchange a few words with you.’
– Mozart to his wife, July 7, 1791
‘…A German lady of whom he [Mozart] was passionately fond.’
– Michael Kelly about Constanze in Reminiscences
Constanze Maria Weber was born at Zell im Wiesenthal on January 5, 1762, the second youngest of four surviving daughters of Fridolin and Cäcelia Weber.1 She came from a family of exceptionally talented people. Constanze’s grandfather, Fridolin Weber senior graduated in philosophy in 1710 from the University of Freiburg in Breisgau. He was a gifted musician and singer whose great musical talent was passed on to his children and grandchildren. Soon after he graduated from the University of Freiburg, Fridolin Weber senior took the position of tutor to the sickly son of Baron Schönau at Zell and, after the death of the Baron, became his widow’s adviser and bailiff of her vast estates. At the age of thirty-four he married the twenty-seven-year-old daughter of Laurent Chellar, a barber and wigmaker who had migrated to Germany from Brittany. The couple had five children and lived happily at Zell until the young Baron Schönau, now no longer a sickly child but a gambler who dissipated his late father’s fortune, dismissed Fridolin Weber on trumped-up charges. Fridolin senior successfully sued the young Baron and the proceeds of the lawsuit made him financially independent for the rest of his life.
Fridolin’s younger son, Franz Anton Weber, spent his life wandering in Germany as an actor and musician. He longed to discover noble ancestry and eventually traced his family heritage to one Johann Baptist Weber, ennobled by Ferdinand II in 1622. Franz Anton’s sons were brought up to believe in their noble lineage, thus we find subsequently the preposition ‘von’ placed before their patronymic. Two of Franz Anton’s elder sons studied with Joseph Haydn and his younger son, Carl Maria von Weber, became the founder of the German Romantic movement and was acknowledged as the most brilliant pianist of his time.2
Constanze’s father, Fridolin Weber junior, was the second eldest child in the family. Like his father, Fridolin senior, he was an exceptionally talented singer and violinist. His intention was to study law at the University of Freiburg in Breisgau but his father’s death in 1754 put an end to this ambition. During that year he began working for the same Baron Schönau who had caused so much grief to his late father. While thus employed, Fridolin junior married Cäcilia Stamm from Mannheim, whose brother was Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral at Worms. Fridolin and Cäcilia Weber lived for seven years in Zell, where all their children were born. Given the character of the employer, not surprisingly history repeated itself. Baron Schönau dismissed Fridolin Weber and the family had to flee Zell in the middle of the night, taking with them their few possessions including a piano and numerous books. Fridolin’s brother, Franz Anton helped them settle in Mannheim, where Fridolin eked out a living as bass singer at the Palatine Court. Fridolin junior also sued Baron Schönau and although he too won the case, the settlement this time was meagre and the family lived in abject poverty. Fridolin supplemented his annual court salary of 100 gulden working as a theatre prompter and music copyist. His income was far from sufficient to support a family of six, let alone keep them in comfort.
Although poverty and debt plagued Fridolin Weber all his life, his daughters learned to play the piano and spoke several languages. As he had no money to indulge his daughters with private lessons, it can be assumed that he was their teacher. Keeping in mind the excellence of their training, he must have been an outstanding and patient pedagogue. Aloysia, the second eldest, was the daughter most blessed by the gods. Her talent as pianist and singer impressed Mozart when she was only eighteen years old. Aloysia became prima donna of the k.k. Theater nächst der Burg in Vienna and was later retained for the Italian opera when it came back into fashion. The eldest daughter, Josepha, became the star of the Schikaneder Company and the first ‘Queen of the Night’ in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte (The magic flute), a role written especially for the coloratura quality of her voice. Sophie, the youngest in the family and Constanze’s devoted sister, joined the k.k. Theater nächst der Burg in Vienna as an actress in 1781. Constanze played the piano and evidently possessed a lovely soprano voice. Mozart wrote the soprano part of the C Minor Mass for her. Following Mozart’s death, when she toured Germany promoting his music, Constanze often sang arias from his operas to discriminating audiences.
Constanze was brought up in Mannheim during its most glorious years. The Elector Karl Theodor brought to Mannheim a cultural rebirth comparable only to the Italian Renaissance. The ‘Palatine Athens’, as Mannheim was often referred to, boasted the best orchestra in Germany at the time, an Academy for the teaching of physics and economics, a school for painting and sculpture, a school of linguistics, and a museum of natural history. Nor was there a shortage of exhibitions of paintings and engravings. Constanze would have been influenced from an early age not only by the artistic environment of her own home but also by the cultural pursuits of her fellow Mannheimers.
The few letters written to Leopold Mozart and his daughter Nannerl when Constanze was nineteen years old reveal her as a shy and self-effacing girl. This was probably due as much to her nature as to her upbringing and place within the family unit. Aloysia, whose beauty and talent promised a better life for the impoverished family, undoubtedly received preferential treatment. Josepha, Constanze and Sophie shared equally in what was left of their parents’ attention. Nevertheless, the family was united in trying to improve its difficult life, the daughters sharing in the housework and making their own clothes. Josepha became an excellent cook, as confirmed by Mozart, who enjoyed her culinary art both in Mannheim and Vienna.
Constanze was sixteen years old when she first met Mozart, when he stopped in Mannheim on his way to Paris in an attempt to secure a position at the Court, and his prolonged stay had a lasting effect on the Weber family. Except for a separation of three years, the lives of the Weber girls would ever after be influenced by their relationship with Mozart.
Mozart’s journey to Paris was born of necessity. Despite the tremendous vitality and joyful spirit of his compositions, he was bored by his repetitious duties at the court of Archbishop Hieronymus Count Colloredo. Colloredo’s ambition to imitate the Viennese court by importing Italian musicians for the leading posts in his orchestra reduced the German musicians’ opportunities of advancement to an absolute minimum. In 1775 Colloredo abandoned the court theatre for economic reasons, replacing it with the Ballhaus on Hannibalplatz, where only itinerant troupes appeared and where the Salzburg musicians no longer performed. Leopold Mozart soon realised that there was no future for his son in Salzburg and that he would need to seek his fortune where his talent would be better appreciated. The situation was further aggravated by Colloredo’s remark that ‘Wolfgang knows nothing and should learn music in a conservatorium in Naples’3.
The time had come for Leopold and Wolfgang to undertake another concert tour and a petition to this effect was presented to the Archbishop. It was promptly rejected as the Archbishop was at this time expecting a visit from Joseph II of Austria and needed all his musicians to remain in Salzburg. Wolfgang solved the problem by submitting his resignation on August 28, 1777. He was released from the Archbishop’s service on September 1, 1777.
Leopold’s court duties as Vice-Kapellmeister kept him in Salzburg and he was therefore faced with the problem of having to let Wolfgang travel alone. Despite his twenty-one years, Wolfgang had never travelled without his father. Financial matters and concert arrangements had always been handled by Leopold. It may well be that Wolfgang secretly welcomed the idea of travelling alone; freedom from Salzburg undoubtedly meant freedom from his father, whose obsessive preoccupation with him burdened Wolfgang with a dependency he found difficult to overcome. Leopold, however, could not face the idea of allowing his son to travel alone. Instead, he decided that Wolfgang’s mother must accompany him on the long and hazardous journey. She was then fifty-six years old, a bad traveller and accustomed to the comforts of her Salzburg home.
Mozart and his mother left Salzburg with great optimism on September 23, 1777. They first stopped in Munich, where Mozart hoped to obtain employment at the court of the reigning prince, the Elector Maximilian Joseph. However, the news that Mozart had left the service of Archbishop Colloredo had already reached Munich and the prince was reluctant to employ him in case this would anger the neighbouring sovereign.
Leopold urged them to leave Munich and continue to Augsburg, his birthplace, where his brother Alois still pursued the family trade of printing. While there, Alois’ daughter Maria Thekla (Bäsle) provided a welcome diversion for Mozart and a light-hearted break from the tensions and disappointments of his stay in Munich. (His subsequent letters to her were later to become the subject of extensive psychological analysis. Their scatological content prompted Stefan Zweig to send a copy to Sigmund Freud in 1931 with the suggestion that his students study the frequent ‘elements of infantilism and coprophilia’ contained in the correspondence.4 Mozart and Bäsle5 fortunately had no knowledge of how posterity would judge their exuberant games.)
Wolfgang and his mother arrived in Mannheim on October 30, 1777. Although his need of a music copyist led him to Fridolin Weber early during his stay, he first mentions the Webers in a letter to Leopold dated January 17, 1778, in which he announces his planned trip to perform for the Princess of Orange at Kirchheim-Bolanden. He had had four arias copied and he planned to play a symphony. As an aside he mentions that copying of the arias had cost him little because ‘a certain Herr Weber’ who is accompanying him had copied them. Herr Weber’s daughter ‘who has a lovely, pure voice’ will sing the arias.6
The letter was calculated to arrive in Salzburg at a time when Mozart was already on his way to Kirchheim-Bolanden. He invited Aloysia to share the program with him and Fridolin acted as chaperon on the journey. Wolfgang’s letter mentions Aloysia only briefly but his involvement with her had already made him cancel his travel arrangements to Paris with the famous oboist Friedrich Ramm and the flautist Johann Baptist Wendling, having very cleverly used a ‘moral’ issue to convince his mother of their undesirability as travelling companions. (It appears that Wendling’s beautiful daughter, Augusta, was at one time the mistress of Elector Karl Theodor.) As Wolfgang by this time had plans to travel with Aloysia, he played on his mother’s Salzburger ‘prudery’ until the proposed travel arrangements with Ramm and Wendling became repugnant to her and she chose to journey on with her son rather than return to Salzburg.
Constanze played no part in Mozart’s life at this time. She was just a little girl and her memories, as recorded by her second husband Nissen, do not extend to this period. However, she did observe how completely besotted Mozart was with her sister and how important his friendship was to her family. She shared in the excitement of her sister’s trip to Kirchheim-Bolanden, which Wolfgang welcomed as an opportunity to spend some precious moments with Aloysia.
It seemed as though a new era had dawned for the Weber family. Despite his many engagements, Mozart spent long hours with the congenial Webers where he found ‘Gemütlichkeit’ and much admiration. Here he found himself to be ‘quite a second Papa’ 7 as he sat listening to the sad story of Fridolin’s life.
Mozart was determined to help the unfortunate family escape their poverty. With naive enthusiasm he made plans for himself and Aloysia and wrote to his father:
My idea is as follows: I propose to remain here and finish entirely at my leisure that music for De Jean, for which I am to get 200 gulden. I can stay here as long as I like and neither board nor lodging costs me anything. In the meantime Herr Weber will endeavour to get engagements here and there for concerts with me, and we shall then travel together. When I am with him, it is just as if I were travelling with you. The very reason I am so fond of him is because, apart from his personal appearance, he is just like you and has exactly your character and way of thinking. If my mother were not, as you know, too comfortably lazy to write, she could tell you the very same thing! I must confess that I much enjoyed travelling with them. We were happy and merry; I was hearing a man talk like you; I had nothing to worry about; I found my torn clothes mended; in short I was waited on like a prince … If our plan succeeds, we, M. Weber, his two daughters (Josefa and Aloysia) and I will have the honour of visiting my dear Papa and my dear sister for a fortnight on our way through Salzburg. My sister will find a friend and a companion in Mlle Weber, for, like my sister in Salzburg, she has a reputation for good behaviour, her father resembles my father and the whole family resembles the Mozarts.8
Leopold received Wolfgang’s letter with amazement and horror:
…Up to the present, thank God, I have been in good health; but this letter, in which I only recognise my son by that failing of his which makes him believe everyone at the first word spoken, [and] open his kind heart to every plausible flatterer … it was imperative for you to guard your warm heart by the strictest reserve, undertake nothing without full consideration and never be carried away by enthusiastic notions and blind fancies. … Merciful God! those happy moments are gone when as a child and boy, you never went to bed without standing on a chair and singing to me Oragna fiagata fa and ending by kissing me again and again on the tip of my nose and telling me that when I grew old you would put me in a glass case and protect me from every breath of air…9
The letter is full of reproaches. For months Leopold had dispatched letters of explicit instructions, controlling the journey of wife and son from Salzburg. Now it seemed that all was lost.
…As for your proposal (I can hardly write when I think of it), your proposal to travel about with Herr Weber and, be it noted, his two daughters – it has nearly made me lose my reason! My dearest son! How can you have allowed yourself to be bewitched even for an hour by such a terrible idea, which must have been suggested to you by someone or other! Your letter reads like a romance.10
Despite his unsuccessful efforts to secure a position at the Palatine Court, Mozart had thoroughly enjoyed his stay in Mannheim. His plans to travel to Paris were shelved – he would now travel with Fridolin Weber and Aloysia to Italy, with a stop in Augsburg, from whence his mother would return to Salzburg. But his father’s reply gave him a sense of total failure. Mozart was sick for several days and his next letter to his father reveals for the first time his well-controlled anger, a sensation he was to experience more frequently from then on. He wrote that the days when standing on a chair he would sing and kiss his father on the nose were indeed gone. But neither his respect nor his obedience and love for his father were diminished.11 However, the idea of the Italian journey with Aloysia and Fridolin had to be abandoned and instead, Mozart and his mother resumed their plans to travel to Paris.
The Webers had suddenly lost their benefactor. Fridolin could not have imagined that Mozart’s enthusiastic plans would so easily be squashed by his father. This experience would later be remembered by Cäcilia Weber and her much criticised behaviour toward Mozart in Vienna takes on a different perspective when viewed with the Mannheim disappointment in mind. Constanze was witness to this small drama but other more pressing problems may have obscured her memory of Mozart’s departure from Mannheim. The Weber family’s very survival in Mannheim was threatened when, following the death on December 30, 1777, of Maximilian, the Elector of Bavaria, Elector-Palatine Karl Theodor left Mannheim for Munich to claim his inheritance as the next Elector of Bavaria. The Mannheim musicians and those connected with the court orchestra were left in a quandary, not knowing what the future would bring, fearing that Karl Theodor’s move to Munich would end the golden era of the Mannheim orchestra.
Karl Theodor, as Maximilian’s cousin, was the natural claimant to the Bavarian succession. But Joseph II of Austria, who had married Maximilian’s sister, decided to put in his own claim. In the meantime, Frederick the Great of Prussia, who saw himself as the defender of all the German states, began to mobilise against Austria. Joseph II deployed an army eighty thousand strong and sent it marching against Prussia. However, the Treaty of Teschen on May 13, 1779, brought this dispute to an end without a shot being fired although both armies were decimated by hunger and disease.
On March 13 Mozart and his mother attended a farewell party at the Webers’ and Mozart wrote to his father that Mlle Weber knitted for him two pairs of mittens as a token of her regard for him and Herr Weber gave him music paper and the comedies of Moliere. Herr Weber expressed his sorrow to his mother that their ‘best friend and benefactor who has done so much for his daughter’ was suddenly leaving.12
The day before Mozart and his mother left for Paris, the Webers again invited him to dinner. He did not accept this invitation but instead spent two hours with them, and when he left they all wept. Herr Weber accompanied him downstairs and called after him again and again ‘Adieu’.13
1 There is mention of a son, Johann Nepomuk and five daughters in a letter written by Mozart to his father on January 17, 1778.
2 Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826). His opera Der Freischütz (The freeshooter) helped generate new enthusiasm for German opera. His ideas influenced many composers, particularly Wagner.
3 Anderson, E. The Letters of Mozart and His Family, December 22, 1777.
4 On August 28, 1799, Constanze wrote to the publishers Breitkopf & Härtel, who were planning to publish a biography of Mozart: ‘…the letters to his cousin are tasteless, of course, but very humorous and deserve mention, although they should not be printed in their entirety. I hope you will not print anything without letting me read it first’. Bauer, W. A. & Deutsch, O. E. Mozart. Briefe und Aufzeichnungen.
5 Maria Anna Thekla Mozart (Bäsle) was the daughter of Alois, Leopold Mozart’s brother, in Augsburg. She never married but gave birth to a daughter allegedly fathered by a canon of the Cathedral. She later lived out of wedlock with the aged postmaster of Augsburg.
6 Anderson, E. The Letters of Mozart and His Family, January 17, 1778.
7 ibid., September 23, 1777.
8 ibid., February 4, 1778.
9 ibid., February 11–12, 1778.
10 ibid.
11 ibid., February 19, 1778.
12 ibid., March 24, 1778.
13 ibid.
Following the departure of the Elector Karl Theodor to Munich, the court musicians anxiously hoped that he would eventually return to Mannheim so that normal life in their beloved city would be resumed. Fridolin Weber’s uncertainty came close to panic. He contemplated taking Aloysia on tour, inspired as he was by Mozart’s enthusiasm for her talent. This, however, would have entailed further borrowing of funds he had no hope of repaying. Instead Fridolin travelled to Mainz where the Seyler Theatrical Company was in residence. Although this Company’s performances were based on dramatic theatre repertoire, Singspiele (operas) were often presented as a fill-in between acts. Fridolin hoped that Aloysia could begin her career as a singer with the Seyler Company. With this in mind, he looked for work in Mainz, but without success and the idea of moving was soon abandoned.
To add to the unhappy family’s distress, Aloysia had not been invited to sing at a court concert although she was now a salaried singer, receiving 200 florins a year. The Webers suspected the Italian singers of initiating rumours that she had lost her voice. Soon after this episode, Aloysia sang at a concert given by Herr von Gemmingen14 where she was heard by Count Seeau and Christian Cannabich, the conductor of the Mannheim orchestra.15 As a result she was invited by Count Seeau to join the Munich opera.
By mid July the court musicians were given the choice of following Karl Theodor to Munich or staying in Mannheim on their appointed salaries, an entirely democratic arrangement, each man having to inform the Intendant, Count Seeau of his decision. At first Fridolin Weber decided to stay in Mannheim. His ‘wretched circumstances’ prevented a move because of the inevitable expenditure it would entail. He wrote a letter to Count Seeau advising that his shattered affairs prevented him from following the Elector to Munich, however much he would wish to do so.16 Although remaining in Mannheim seemed at first a better alternative, when Aloysia was appointed to the Munich Opera, the family moved to Munich.
The contact between Mozart and the Webers continued through correspondence, of which only two letters are extant, saved by the Webers. The news of Anna Maria Mozart’s death in Paris reached the Webers possibly through Ramm who returned to Mannheim at the end of August. It was rumoured that Anna Maria died of ‘some contagious disease’ and that Mozart too was gravely ill. Aloysia went every day to the Capuchin Church to offer prayers for Wolfgang’s recovery.17
The death of his mother on July 3, 1778, caused Mozart the most profound grief he had ever experienced. Anna Maria was fifty-seven years old when they arrived in Paris. It is quite possible that the hardship of the long journey contributed to the breakdown of her health. The death certificate cites heart disease as the cause of death, but Dr. Peter J. Davies suggests the more likely cause was typhus.18 This may well be true, as food was sent to her from a nearby restaurant and the sanitary conditions prevalent in Paris at that time left a lot to be desired. She was buried at the cemetery of Saint-Eustache, far from her beloved family in Salzburg.
The depression Mozart suffered after his mother’s death is well documented. He accomplished little in Paris and suffered hardship and humiliation. He moved in with Baron Friedrich Melchior Grimm19 and his mistress, Madame D’Epinay. Grimm had been a great champion of the ‘Wunderkind’ Mozart when the family visited Paris in 1763 but he found the adult Mozart an unattractive and burdensome young man he no longer wished to patronise. There was evidently no love lost between Baron Grimm and Mozart and this was further exacerbated by Grimm’s letter to Leopold suggesting that Wolfgang was incapable of making a successful career in Paris. Leopold sent this humiliating letter to Wolfgang, who thereafter found living under Grimm’s roof unbearable. At the same time, Leopold began to press his son to return home to take up the position of court organist that he had just succeeded in securing for him.
Wolfgang’s love for Aloysia sustained him during this difficult period. His surviving letter to Fridolin Weber is thirty pages long, revealing his longing to help the unfortunate family.20 To Aloysia he speaks of his great admiration for her and expresses his belief that he will be happiest on the day when he will see her again and will be able to embrace her with all his heart.21
The Webers’ financial circumstances changed with Aloysia’s appointment to the Munich Opera. She was engaged at a sum of 600 florins,22 and her father’s salary was increased to 400 florins annually. Aloysia also obtained for her father the position of cashier at the Munich Theatre. Such security had not been experienced by the Weber family since their departure from Zell. Fridolin began paying off his Mannheim debts and moved his family to a residence more suitable for a rising prima donna. Aloysia’s glorious voice brought her great popularity in Munich. Men with ancient titles paid court to her and she soon forgot the humble life she had lived in Mannheim.
Mozart departed from Paris on September 25, 1778, after six unhappy months. Even his departure was an unpleasant experience. So anxious was Baron Grimm to rid himself of his guest, that Mozart was given no time to correct the proofs of his violin sonatas dedicated to the Bavarian Electress. Assuring Mozart of a booking on a fast coach, Grimm in fact sent him off in the regular mail coach which took ten days to reach Strasbourg, not even half way.
Mozart lingered on his return journey, hoping against hope to find employment at some place other than Salzburg. The most difficult problem facing him was the reunion with his father. He stayed in Mannheim for a month, aggravating his father to the point of hysteria by the continued postponement of his return to Salzburg. When at Christmas he arrived at the Webers’ in Munich, Aloysia did not recognise him. Although she had cried often after he departed for Paris,23 the young man she remembered was not the short, pale and pock-marked man dressed in a red suit of mourning decorated with shining buttons. This may have been the fashion in Paris but in staid and provincial Munich Wolfgang looked like a clown. Aloysia was also fully conscious of her new status and she now found him most unattractive. She paid him no attention at all. In her old age, Constanze remembered that Mozart sat down at the piano and sang a dirty ditty to show he cared little for those who did not love him. Describing this event many years later, Constanze recalled the pity and shame she felt for him. For the rest of his stay in Munich, Mozart was entertained by Constanze, with whom he enjoyed playing the piano. According to Nissen, at that time Constanze was more attracted by his talent than by his person.24
Mozart’s show of unconcerned bravado when singing his song to Aloysia was but a mask concealing his hurt pride and sadness. He had much to sadden him. He was troubled by his mother’s death and by his continuing failure to secure a position away from Salzburg. His hopes concerning Aloysia Weber had evaporated. On December 29 he wrote to his father that he could only weep because of this disappointment and that he could not bear Salzburg or its inhabitants. By then his cousin Bäsle had arrived in Munich, Mozart having invited her after he departed from Mannheim hoping that ‘…perhaps you will have a great part to play’25. He may have been referring here to his hope of becoming engaged, or perhaps his apprehension about meeting Aloysia prompted him to seek moral support. Bäsle’s presence helped him weather these difficult days and he decided to take her with him to Salzburg to smooth his dreaded meeting with his father.
Constanze’s friendship with Mozart began during this troubled period in his life. A study of Constanze’s character reveals her ready sympathy to those in need. Her sons benefited by her generosity as adults and her sisters Sophie and Aloysia were supported by her in their old age in Salzburg. Mozart’s sister Nannerl’s stepdaughter, Agnes von Sonnenburg, was remembered by Constanze in her will because she needed financial support. Nissen’s statement that Constanze was more attracted by Mozart’s genius than by his person may well be true—Mozart was not attractive in the conventional sense. He lacked the stature of a robust young man and his humour was unpredictable and devoid of finesse. If Constanze’s first attraction to Mozart was motivated by her pity for him and admiration for his genius, she may well be considered the richer for it. Constanze was then seventeen years old and Mozart must have found in her a charming companion. He spent three weeks in Munich and the time they spent together formed the basis for their future relationship.
Mozart returned to Salzburg on January 17, 1779, accompanied by his cousin Bäsle. There is no documentation of his reunion with his father and sister but the presence of his ‘little cousin’ may have softened the impact to some degree. Mozart spent the ensuing two years in Salzburg. Although his compositions acquired a ‘mantle of greatness’, he found that he could hardly settle down to work because of his unhappiness.26 It is during this time that he made the acquaintance of Schikaneder27, whose troupe came to Salzburg to perform works by Shakespeare, Benda’s melodramas, some Singspiele and a goodly sprinkling of horror plays. The friendly relations between Mozart and Schikaneder date from this period.
In September 1779 the Weber family was again on the move, following Aloysia to Vienna where, as prima donna to the k.k. Theater nächst der Burg, she made her debut as Hannchen in Das Rosenfest zu Salenci (The Rose Festival of Salenci). She became a great favourite with the Viennese audiences and was cast in leading roles as a gentle, quiet lover and also in naive parts.28 The family settled in a house called ‘Zum Auge Gottes’, Petersplatz No. 11. Once again Aloysia secured for her father the position of cashier at the k.k. Theater nächst der Burg and they began to look forward with hope to their life in Vienna. Then suddenly, on October 23, 1779, one month after their arrival, Fridolin died of a cerebral haemorrhage. He was forty-six years old.
Cäcilia Weber and her daughters were now alone in Vienna with Aloysia’s income supporting the whole family. This arrangement lasted for one year. On October 31, 1780, Aloysia married the esteemed actor Joseph Lange, a widower nine years her senior, and an exceptionally handsome man. Lange was also an outstanding painter whose unfinished portrait of Mozart bore, according to Constanze, the best likeness of him. He was a linguist who read Shakespeare in the original and a man of great insight. His own biography gives a curiously modern psychological portrait of Mozart. Before his marriage to Aloysia, Joseph Lange signed a document which bound him to grant his widowed mother-in-law an annual income of 700 ducats which Lange continued paying until the death of Cäcilia Weber in 1793. At the time of her marriage, Aloysia was pregnant and her first child, Maria Anna Sabina, was born on May 31, 1781.
After Aloysia moved away with her husband, Josepha went to Graz where her studies in singing, languages and deportment were sponsored by the Imperial Court. The enterprising Cäcilia turned her home into a boarding house to support her family. Only Constanze and Sophie were left at home. They seldom went out, except to the Prater or the theatre and were always accompanied by their mother. It is unlikely that they had many, or any, friends in Vienna.
The Vienna that Constanze encountered was unlike any other city in Europe. The population was so homogeneously united that only the epithet ‘Viennese’ fits its description. There was no question of ‘nationality’ as such among the inhabitants of Vienna, where Magyars, Bohemians, Slovaks and Slovenes, Germans, Italians and Poles rubbed shoulders in good humour. The love of food could easily be indulged here and the modest sum of 31 kreutzer would purchase a meal consisting of two meat dishes, soup, vegetables and unlimited bread with a litre of wine. Because people were generous, even industrious citizens accepted the fact that some individuals might prefer begging to working, extreme poverty was practically nonexistent and those who made begging their profession often profited handsomely by it.
Although, in the provinces, the upsurge of nationalism was a constant threat, for the Empire was by no means solidly united, in Habsburg Vienna the ideological concept was that God had given them rulers whom they ought to respect, as children do their parents, and obey their decisions for the good of the country.29 Given the lively and cheerful character of the Viennese, this was a perfect philosophy. It fitted well with Austrian Catholicism which promoted the intimate relationship between man and Deity. Nothing would be harder to imagine than a puritan or Jansenist Vienna or, for that matter, Austria.
The reign of Joseph II further enhanced the liberal attitudes of the Viennese by the introduction of personal freedoms, which included the abolition of censorship and the tolerance of minorities. To Joseph II, all his subjects were equal as long as their efforts benefited the State. In 1775 he opened the Imperial Gardens, the Augarten, to the public and later his former hunting ground, the Prater, was handed over to the citizens of Vienna after it had been laid out in a pleasing and harmonious fashion. The ‘Lindenallee’ in the Augarten became the favourite recreational promenade where the Viennese could mingle with the aristocracy, and the Emperor might be seen driving through the Prater conspicuous in simple attire. The roads were thronged with carriages and one could see deer quietly grazing, unafraid of the passing crowds.30
The Viennese were dancing mad. Carnivals, masquerades and balls were extremely popular. Sledge rides by candlelight added a further sparkle to winter entertainment. The nobility participated in spectacular sledge marathons lasting three to four hours, the gentlemen driving the horses at great speed. Forty to fifty sledges would take part, all richly ornamented with figures of all kinds of monsters and inlaid with burnished gold. In every sledge there was a lady seated, covered with diamonds, in furs and pelisses; behind each lady was a gentleman driving the sledge. The running footmen were dressed in costly liveries, and the horses had large plumes of milk-white feathers.31 Gambling was widespread and fortunes changed hands in a night. Even the poorest Viennese could be seen on street corners gambling for pennies.
The young Constanze. Correspondence card of a lithograph from about 1900 after the original oil painting by Joseph Lange, Vienna 1782. © Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum (ISM), F 002.015.
There is no documentation of Constanze’s first years in Vienna. Essentially she appears to have been a loner as no mention is ever made of intimate female companionship in Vienna or for that matter at any other time of her life. Poverty in Mannheim would have been a factor isolating her from those whose cultural interests were similar to her own. She shared with her family a great love of music and a working knowledge of several languages. Being the daughter of a poor musician, however, she did not belong to the social class where similar interests were pursued. Historians, together with Leopold Mozart, have accused the Weber girls of being scatterbrained females with little education. It should be remembered, however, that Mozart’s long letter to Aloysia was written not in German but in Italian. Constanze often corresponded in French and spoke fluent Italian—Fridolin Weber had educated his daughters admirably. Although he did not live long enough to educate Sophie, she made up for her lack of education with her generous and loving nature. Constanze’s bond with Sophie was to last a lifetime and it is probable that Sophie was her closest friend and confidante during the Webers’ first trying years in Vienna.
Constanze never forgot those harrowing first years she spent in Vienna, when scrimping, hard work and loneliness were the order of the day. The penury of this period influenced the frugality and the mode of life of her later years. Her healthy respect for monetary security, for position and influence all stemmed from these early experiences. Although Cäcilia’s excellent business sense ensured a little income, she was shocked by Fridolin’s death and the responsibility so suddenly thrust upon her. She often resorted to drink as a solace. In a huge metropolis like Vienna, few cared for four lonely women without money, social status or connections. Fridolin left nothing but debts and it is to Cäcilia’s credit that all debts were paid. It is not hard to imagine the isolation of the Weber women.
For the lonely Constanze Mozart’s arrival in Vienna in 1781 meant a rediscovery of a friend who had once shared, even for a short time, part of her childhood. Such a person is precious at any time but especially in a foreign place where anonymity means non-existence. That the Weber women spoiled Mozart was not surprising. It was not an act of premeditated chicanery or a desire to entrap Mozart in marriage, as often described by historians, but a genuine delight in a person who had known them at a time when life, although hard, was far less lonely and more congenial. He brought with him not only male companionship, but laughter, excitement and above all music to share, for, despite her poverty, Cäcilia had not disposed of Fridolin’s beloved piano. Indeed it seems that somewhere along the way, Fridolin had even acquired a second instrument. Both were at Wolfgang’s disposal and he availed himself eagerly of the opportunity. Romantic love, under such circumstances, was a natural outcome.
14 Otto Heinrich Freiherr von Gemmingen-Homberg (1753–1836) was the author of Mannheimische Dramaturgie. It is believed that he introduced Mozart to Baron van Swieten and to Freemasonry.
15 Joseph Anton, Count von Seeau, Privy Councillor, was intendant at the Electoral Court at this time. From 1778 until his death in 1799 he was manager of the Munich National Theatre. Christian Cannabich, born in Mannheim in 1731, became leader of the Mannheim Orchestra in 1759 and its conductor in 1775. He was a noted composer and teacher who, in his day, trained nearly all the violinists of the Mannheim Orchestra. According to Leopold Mozart, they first met him in Paris in May 1766.
16 Anderson, E. The Letters of Mozart and His Family, July 31, 1778.
17 ibid., October 15, 1778.
18 Davies, P. J. Mozart in Person. His Character and Health.
19 Friedrich Melchior Grimm (1723–1807) was the son of a German pastor in Regensburg, who settled in Paris in 1748. He founded the famous Correspondance Littéraire.
20 Anderson, E. The Letters of Mozart and His Family, July 29, 1778.
21 ibid., July 30, 1778.
22 ibid., September 24, 1778.
23 Nissen, G. N. Biographie W. A. Mozarts.
24 ibid.
25 Anderson, E. The Letters of Mozart and His Family, December 23, 1778.
26 ibid., May 26, 1781.
27 Emanuel Johann Schikaneder (1751–1812). Theatre director of a travelling troupe of actors. Later settled in Vienna and collaborated with many composers, writing opera librettos.
28 Landon, H. C. Robbins. Mozart. The Golden Years.
29 Brion, M. Daily Life in the Vienna of Mozart and Schubert.
30 Kelly, M. Reminiscences of Michael Kelly of the King’s Theatre and Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.
31 ibid.
Mozart departed Salzburg for Munich on November 5, 1780, to compose and produce the opera Idomeneo for the Munich Carnival. Little did he know when the carriage left his home, that with the exception of one later visit with Constanze, he would never again see the city of his birth. The two years he spent in Salzburg, a period of virtual imprisonment, were now over. En route, the horses galloped over the badly maintained roads causing him to protect his ‘behind’ by digging his hands into the seat.32 Forty years later another traveller, the Irish singer Michael Kelly, remembered this road as the worst in the Empire.
In Munich Mozart was surrounded by his old Mannheim friends and once again tasted the sweetness of freedom. According to Constanze, he considered this the happiest time of his life and his eyes would fill with tears whenever he looked back at this period. At this time, too, there was again a marvellous cooperation between father and son, as the librettist Court Chaplain Gianbattista Varesco lived in Salzburg and Leopold acted as a trusted and tactful negotiator between the librettist and his son.
Although the Empress Maria Theresia died on November 29, 1780, the production of Mozart’s Idomeneo was not affected by the traditional period of mourning. Mozart wrote to his father that in Munich none of the theatres had closed and plays were being performed as usual.33 The opera was to have received its first performance on January 20, 1781, although, due to technical problems, it was not performed until January 29. Leopold and Nannerl arrived for the premiere as did many of their Salzburg friends and the family spent a pleasant time basking in the glow of the opera’s success. For Nannerl, who had to return to the dreariness of Salzburg, this was a time of carefree happiness. They visited Augsburg where Nannerl and Wolfgang entertained the company with ‘divine’ music on two pianofortes.34